I am about to brew an imperial stout with 16.5 pounds of grain.
I see a lot of people saying you have to pitch lots of yeast to make an imperial stout. I have a recipe for an ale, and it’s just as heavy as the stout. It goes off fine with one packet of Abbaye. Finishes fast. I kegged the last batch 5 days after brewing.
Is it really true that big beers have to have a lot of yeast? I would think that the more sugar there was in a wort, the happier the yeast would be.
Another question: if this beer fizzles, is there any reason not to use Abbaye to get it going again? I don’t want phenols and esters, but my understanding is that they are produced early in fermentation, so I would think they wouldn’t be a problem in a beer that was kickstarted after it was mostly fermented.
Finally, I am considering trying Kveik Lutra in dry stout. It’s supposed to be very vigorous. Would it also be a good choice for waking up a stuck fermentation?
A higher gravity wort puts more osmotic pressure on the yeast. I think whether that has a detrimental effect on performance (or how much) is strain dependent. It also means higher alcohol levels as fermentation progresses, which can negatively affect performance as well.
Go to Mrmalty.com and do the calculation. Yeast quantity is very important.
FYI, what I like to do is brew a session beer first (nothing over 5-6% ABV), and it essentially serves as a giant yeast starter. Then you have all the yeast you need for a BIG beer, plus some to save for a future batch, if you like.
Yeast can be expensive, and this is a great way to save some cost and add to the fun!
The mash is over, and man, this is harder than a typical ale. This stuff does NOT want to leave the bag. I squeezed the daylights out of it. I got my wife to help, and she became obsessed.
I am going to run a couple of quarts of hot water through it and call it a day. I’m not sure how much wort I have in the boil kettle, but whatever it is, it’s at 1.091.
UPDATE: I put the oven rack on a cooler, ran about 2.5 quarts of water through at around 170, and squeezed like hell. I ended up with what looks like more than 5 gallons at 1.085, by Smartref. I think I won.